


Insult to Injury

by Viridian5



Category: Saiyuki
Genre: Canon - Manga, Drama, Gen, Introspection
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-07-27
Updated: 2015-07-27
Packaged: 2018-04-11 11:40:42
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,168
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4434170
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Viridian5/pseuds/Viridian5
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Their battle with Ukoku Sanzo has given Goku a lot to think about.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Insult to Injury

**Author's Note:**

> Spoilers for _Saiyuki Reload_ manga’s “Even a Worm” and _Saiyuki_ vol. 2 and 3. Thanks to Akira 17 for beta.

Sanzo needed to _wake up_. It worried Goku when Sanzo stayed out cold for days, and it annoyed Goku that after not being together for so long they’d lost more time like this. Ukoku Sanzo had thoroughly beaten the shit out of all of them with his scary sutra and martial arts (and words!) but he’d spent much more personal one-on-one attention on Sanzo. With the ton of healing Hakkai had put into him, Sanzo had stayed conscious during the fight and through some bantering while they rode away in Jeep, but when they got him to a bed it seemed like his body just gave up. He must have only been staying upright through adrenaline and sheer will. When he woke up, he’d probably be ticked off at his body over that.

He looked fragile but also... prettier when unconscious, when the force of his will didn’t radiate out. He looked thinner than usual too, while Goku was sure Hazel would try to feed him well and share all of the big, rich meals _he_ usually had in an attempt to impress Sanzo, which meant that Sanzo hadn’t been eating for his own reasons. 

Wake up, Sanzo.

Goku really needed to talk to him, tell him things he’d seen and done, ask Sanzo for the same, and try to get some details on what had been going on in his fight with Ukoku Sanzo before they’d arrived to help. What he’d felt from Sanzo, the panic and horror, the smothering darkness closing in, memories disappearing, had been so bad that he’d tossed Sanzo too hard while yanking him out of it. Goku felt bad about it, especially after he found out how badly injured Sanzo had been even before that. 

Could Ukoku Sanzo really have erased Sanzo from existence, as if he’d never existed? Would Goku have found himself in that lonely mountain cage, never having left it or been freed, Hakkai dead, Gojyo probably also dead.... Ukoku Sanzo’s sutra was already scary enough in what Goku had _seen_ it do.

One guy shouldn’t have that kind of power, especially not a guy that twisted. Even without his sutra he just _broke_ you, usually while telling you truth about yourself or your past that really hurt or warping the truth to make it hurt even worse. How did he even know all that stuff? 

What kind of twisted shit had he said to Sanzo while fighting him alone?

Sanzo could handle physical attacks; he was tough and didn’t back down from anything. Stab him, shoot him, punch him, slash him, break all his bones, and Sanzo would still keep on coming while sneering as he asked if that was all you had, you wimp. (When Goku had bragged about how tough Sanzo was to Gojyo once, Gojyo had replied, “Haven’t you noticed that he usually goads people into hurting him worse and longer than they were going to? Masochism isn’t a good superpower!” They heard the click of Sanzo’s gun behind them as Sanzo asked, “You keep talking shit about me when you know what I can do, so who’s the masochist here?” Anyway, Gojyo was right but also wrong.) If Sanzo couldn’t stand, he’d crawl toward or writhe at his enemy. It seriously freaked a lot of them out.

(And Goku knew a lot of that freaking out came from Sanzo’s behavior not being considered... sane, but this was Sanzo. While Goku might hope that Sanzo would take care of himself better or trick him into it at times, he couldn’t expect Sanzo to change himself completely for someone else, because Sanzo would probably sneer at it and it wouldn’t work unless Sanzo came to it, _wanted_ it, on his own.)

This wasn’t something Sanzo had started doing since he got an amazing healer, Hakkai, with him who could quickly fix him up, because Goku had seen the multitude of Sanzo’s old scars and pieced together the story behind a lot of them, the most important story behind who and what Sanzo _was_. It made Goku’s chest ache to think of a much younger Sanzo watching the person he loved most get murdered in front of him--and finding out that person had been a Sanzo too made Goku very glad he hadn’t found that out when he’d been littler because it would’ve terrified him--while he couldn’t do anything to stop it and then going out alone on the road searching for his master’s stolen sutra for years, with no one to talk to or eat with or laugh with, no one to watch his back in dangerous places, no one to try to budge him out of his dark moods. No one to trust, no one to be a _home_ for him as he traveled. 

Although it had hurt at first, when he thought about it more he had total sympathy for Sanzo running off when he’d seen Goku gunned down, seemingly killed in front of him, while he could do nothing, like the return of an old nightmare, and at a moment when it would seem like life had said, “Caught you smiling and caring for someone, so suffer the consequences!” Hakkai had told Goku that Sanzo had gone to pieces over it. Plus, Goku himself had gone totally berserk and attacked his own friends more than once when Sanzo had been seriously wounded, so he had no reason to feel superior. They’d all seen each other being pathetic; it happened when you spent a lot of time with your friends.

The enemies who really messed Sanzo up were the ones who went after his _mind_ , and Ukoku had started that when he got Goku shot up so badly, didn’t he? It _burned_ Goku to know that he and Sanzo’s feelings for him had been used against Sanzo like that. During the journey Sanzo had been opening up more and pushing people away less, good things, things Goku had been encouraging in whatever way he could get away with, but what, that asshole was evil and _bored_ so he’d destroy it all? Kill, maim, hurt, and screw up people for _kicks_? (Goku would miss Gat....) He’d even turned Hazel into his weapon. 

Goku didn’t know how yet, but they would beat Ukoku Sanzo, because he really, really needed to be stopped. Permanently.

“...what are you getting so worked up about?” Sanzo asked softly, looking annoyed that he had to struggle to sit up in the bed. Just Sanzo being Sanzo, battered but not broken. Less pretty, but... _Sanzo_ , who was so much more than his body.

Reminding himself that grabbing hold of Sanzo in happiness would just hurt him and firing all his questions at him at once would just further annoy him, Goku kept his hands to himself and tried to stay casual. “Something I can’t do anything about right now. I’ll stop.”

The shadow of a smile quickly crossed Sanzo’s face. Definitely not broken. “Good.”

Not right now, but someday....

 

### End


End file.
